354 entries categorized "Israel / Palestine"

May 04, 2016

Reuters reports NATO said on Wednesday it had agreed to non-member Israel setting up representation at its Brussels headquarters, a tentative sign of rapprochement between the Jewish state and NATO member Turkey. Israel and Turkey have stepped up efforts to patch up a relationship badly damaged following an Israeli raid in 2010 on a Turkish boat, the Mavi Marmara, which had been trying to breach a blockade on the Gaza Strip.

April 12, 2016

Reuters reports the U.S. military said on Tuesday it has formally notified Egypt and Israel that it is reviewing peacekeeping operations in the insurgency-wracked Sinai, including ways to use technology to do the job of some of the 700 U.S. troops there. "I don't think anyone's talking about a (complete) withdrawal. I think we're just going to look at the number of people we have there and see if there are functions that can be automated or done through remote monitoring," said Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.

March 01, 2016

Reuters reports Israel said on Tuesday that Syrian government forces have used chemical weapons against civilians since the start of a ceasefire aimed at preparing the way for an end to the five-year civil war. The truce, sponsored by Russia and the United States, began on Saturday and has been dogged by opposition charges of non-compliance by Damascus - something President Bashar al-Assad has denied. It does not apply to missions against jihadist rebels. "The Syrians used military grade chemical weapons and lately have been using materials, chlorine, against civilians, including in these very days, after the supposed ceasefire, dropping barrels of chlorine on civilians," Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said in a speech to a conference organized by the New Tech military and aviation group in Airport City, near Tel Aviv. He did not provide further details.

February 01, 2016

Al Jazeera reports United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern that a stalemate in the negotiations between Israel and Palestinians is reaching the point of no return for a two-state solution. "The time has come for Israelis, Palestinians and the international community to read the writing on the wall: The status quo is untenable," Ban wrote in an opinion piece published in the New York Times late on Sunday. Protests against Israel's ongoing occupation in the Palestinian territories have boiled over into violence in recent months.

January 29, 2016

The New York Times reportsthe United States and Britain have monitored secret drone flights and communications by the Israeli Air Force in a hacking operation dating to 1998, according to documents attributed to leaks by the former American intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden. Israel voiced disappointment but no great surprise at the disclosures, published on Friday by The Intercept, an online publication associated with Glenn Greenwald, who has collaborated with Snowden, and by the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel.

January 27, 2016

Reuters reports the United States, European Union and the United Nations have issued unusually stern criticism of Israel, provoking a sharp response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and raising Palestinians' hopes of steps against their neighbor. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday described Israel's settlements as "provocative acts" that raised questions about its commitment to a two-state solution, nearly 50 years after occupying lands the Palestinians seek for a state. Ban also laid some of the blame for four months of stabbings and car rammings by Palestinians at Israel's door, saying "as oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism".

January 04, 2016

BBC News reports a bomb attack on an Israeli army vehicle close to the Lebanon border has drawn a response from Israel, which shelled Lebanese territory. The militant Hezbollah movement said it had detonated a large explosive device beside armored vehicles patrolling the disputed Shebaa Farms area. Lebanese media said the retaliatory shellfire hit the village of Wazzani. Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah were heightened by the killing of a prominent militant in Syria last month. Hezbollah vowed to hold Israel to account for the killing of Samir Qantar in a missile strike in the capital Damascus. Israel's government welcomed news of his death, but did not confirm it was responsible.

November 20, 2015

The New York Times reports Jonathan J. Pollard, the American convicted of spying for Israel, walked out of prison early on Friday after 30 years, but the Obama administration had no plans to let him leave the country and move to Israel and his lawyers immediately went to court to challenge his parole conditions. Pollard, who as a Navy intelligence analyst passed suitcases filled with classified documents to Israeli handlers in the mid-1980s, was released in the early morning hours from a federal prison in Butner, N.C., after receiving parole on a life sentence, ending a long imprisonment that has been a constant irritant in relations between the United States and Israel.

November 09, 2015

The New York Times reports President Obama on Monday said it was time for him and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to move beyond their “strong disagreement” over the Iran nuclear deal and work together on confronting Iranian misbehavior and bolstering Israel’s security, as the two leaders had their first encounter since their feud over the agreement brought their relationship to a bitter low. “It’s no secret that the prime minister and I have had a strong disagreement on this narrow issue,” said Obama, seated beside Netanyahu in the Oval Office at the start of the meeting, their first in more than a year. “But we don’t have a disagreement on the need to making sure Iran does not get a nuclear weapon, and we don’t have a disagreement about us blunting destabilizing activities in Iran that may be taking place,” he added. “And so, we’re going to be looking to make sure we find common ground there.”

November 03, 2015

Reuters reports Israel shut down the main radio station in Hebron on Tuesday and turned part of the city in the occupied West Bank into a closed military zone, with troops clamping down on a district that has become the focal point of violent unrest. The city, 30 km (20 miles) south of Jerusalem, is the largest in the West Bank, with a Palestinian population of 200,000, among whom live 1,000 Jewish settlers under close military protection, leaving Hebron split into two zones.The anger, due partly to tensions over the Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem and partly to a sense that peaceful efforts to end to Israel's occupation have gone nowhere, has fueled violence across Israel, East Jerusalem and the West Bank since late September, with the focus now on Hebron. Local people said the radio station shut down by Israel had carried messages encouraging people to demonstrate, but added that this was normal and described the station as "liberal". "It plays lots of music; it's everyone's favorite," said one. The Israeli military said the station "glorifies attacks against Israelis."

October 26, 2015

The Washington Post reports violence between Israelis and Palestinians showed no signs of abating Sunday despite a plan brokered a day earlier by Secretary of State John F. Kerry to bring quiet to the region, which has endured weeks of tit-for-tat killings. Israeli police said they fatally shot a Palestinian woman in Hebron after she approached officers and pulled out a knife. The city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is one of multiple areas across the region that have experienced a rash of Palestinian attacks, often by knife, and lethal reprisals by Israel. Earlier in the day, Israel’s military said two Palestinians attacked an Israeli man near the Gush Etzion bloc of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The assailants fled after the Israeli responded with gunfire, the military said.

October 22, 2015

The New York Times reportswith Israelis and Palestinians caught in another widening cycle of bloodshed, Secretary of State John Kerry met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in Berlin on Thursday and urged him to tone down the harsh language that American and European officials believe is fueling the violence.The message delivered on Thursday to Netanyahu, who claimed this week that a Muslim cleric had inspired the Holocaust, will be repeated in the coming days when Kerry meets the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, whose own comments Netanyahu and others have blamed for provoking attacks.

October 21, 2015

BBC News reports Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been criticised for saying a Palestinian leader persuaded the Nazis to carry out the Holocaust. Netanyahu insisted Adolf Hitler had only wanted to expel Jews from Europe, but that Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini told him: "Burn them." However, the chief historian at Israel's memorial to the Holocaust said this account was factually incorrect. Angela Merkel said Germany "abides by its responsibility for the Holocaust." A senior Palestinian official meanwhile said it showed Mr Netanyahu hated Palestinians so much he was willing to absolve Hitler.

October 16, 2015

BBC News reports fresh violence has erupted between Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, with three Palestinians killed in clashes, Palestinians say. Two were killed in confrontations with Israeli troops over the Gaza border, medical sources said. Also in the West Bank a Palestinian posing as a journalist who stabbed and injured a soldier was shot dead. Violence between the two sides has spiralled, with near-daily stabbings by Palestinians of Israelis this month. Seven Israelis have been killed and dozens wounded in the stabbings and some gun attacks. At least 30 Palestinians, including several of the attackers, have been killed in the growing unrest.

October 14, 2015

NPR reports Israel has started deploying soldiers to cities in an effort to quell escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians. NPR's Emily Harris reports that in recent weeks, at least seven Israelis and more than two dozen Palestinians have been killed. Emily says the deployment was authorized by Israel's security cabinet, which also authorized police to close off sections of Jerusalem that are "deemed to be centers of friction, potentially Palestinian neighborhoods. But critics say this could also create additional friction and instead raise tensions."

October 09, 2015

The New York Times reports an apparently uncoordinated series of attacks by Palestinians on Israelis, mostly with knives, over the past week, have been accompanied by swelling protests in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Israeli towns with large populations of Arab citizens. Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli settlers and soldiers are as old as the conflict itself, but the demonstrations in recent days have been more numerous, more sustained and more confrontational than those of the past few years. “We feel that the intifada has begun,” said Mohammad Zeid, 23, an activist at Birzeit University, on a hill outside Ramallah. He said the demonstrations were a way to continue momentum, adding, “This is a letter to our political leaders: We don’t want submission, which is what they think peace is.”

October 05, 2015

The New York Times reports two Palestinian teenagers were killed on Monday, as clashes with Israeli forces near checkpoints and military watchtowers in the West Bank continued. The demonstrations and clashes in the West Bank are part of the latest wave of violence, which began on Thursday when Palestinian gunmen killed a Jewish couple near a settlement in the occupied West Bank, leaving their young children orphans. Also on Monday, the Israeli authorities continued the unusual measure of barring most of Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents from entering the Old City. Only Israeli citizens, tourists and Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship or live, work or study in the Old City were granted access, along with some Palestinians who were headed to Al Aqsa Mosque for worship, but men under 50 were temporarily barred from praying there.

October 01, 2015

BBC News reports Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is prepared to "immediately" resume peace talks with the Palestinians. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, he said that the Palestinian president was not interested in negotiations without preconditions. "I remain committed to a vision of two states for two peoples," Netanyahu claimed. Mahmoud Abbas attended a flag-raising ceremony at the UN on Wednesday. The Palestinian president told the UN that the Palestinian Authority no longer felt bound by agreements with Israel he claimed were "continually violated".

September 30, 2015

NPR reports during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he was no longer bound by the Oslo Accords. "As long as Israel refuses to commit to the agreements signed with us, which render us an authority without real powers, and as long as Israel refuses to cease settlement activities and to release of the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners in accordance with our agreements, they leave us no choice but to insist that we will not remain the only ones committed to the implementation of these agreements, while Israel continuously violates them," Abbas said. The Oslo agreements, which were signed with Israel in the mid '90s, are the basis for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. It's unclear what kind of on-the-ground implications Abbas' declarations could have.

September 21, 2015

Reuters reports Israel and Russia will coordinate their military actions over Syria to avoid accidentally trading fire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. "My objective was to prevent misunderstandings between IDF (Israel Defense Force) units and Russian forces," Netanyahu told Israeli reporters, adding that he and Putin "agreed on a mechanism to prevent such misunderstandings".

September 10, 2015

Reuters reports the U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday sanctioned four Hamas officials and financiers and a Saudi Arabia-based company controlled by one of them for providing financial support to the Palestinian militant group. Among those named by the Treasury Department were Salih al-Aruri, a Hamas political bureau member who it said was responsible for Hamas money transfers, and Mahir Salah, a Hamas financier based in Saudi Arabia and dual British and Jordanian citizen who Treasury said leads the Hamas Finance Committee in Saudi Arabia. Also named were Abu Ubaydah Khayri Hafiz al-Agha, a Saudi Arabian citizen, and Mohammed Reda Mohammed Anwar Awad, an Egyptian national.

Reuters reports the United States will send an additional 75 U.S. troops and other assets to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula to bolster the security of international peacekeepers, who have come under attack from militants in recent days, the Pentagon said on Thursday. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the deployment included a light infantry platoon and forward surgical teams. The announcement came a week after bomb attacks wounded six soldiers, including four Americans, who were assigned to the Multinational Force and Observer peacekeeping mission.

September 09, 2015

The New York Times reports Iran’s supreme leader predicts that Israel will not exist in 25 years, and rules out any new negotiations with the “Satan,” the United States. In remarks published Wednesday on his personal website and in posts on Twitter, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, responds to what he says are claims that Israel will be safe for that period after the July nuclear agreement. “After nuclear negotiations, the Zionist regime said that they will not be worried about Iran in the next 25 years,” Ayatollah Khamenei wrote. “I am telling you, first, you will not be around in 25 years’ time, and God willing, there will be no Zionist regime in 25 years. Second, during this period, the spirit of fighting, heroism and jihad will keep you worried every moment.”

September 04, 2015

Reuters reports Arab countries will join the Middle East Quartet in New York at the end of September to seek ways to revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, the EU's top diplomat said on Friday, part of a new European diplomatic initiative. Encouraged by Europe's role in securing a nuclear deal with Iran, the EU believes a broad range of countries could help, more than a year after the collapse of a U.S.-brokered peace push envisaging a Palestinian state co-existing with Israel. On the margins of the General Assembly of the United Nations, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the head of the Arab League will join the Middle East Quartet of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia for talks.

August 24, 2015

The New York Times reports in a widely watched terrorism lawsuit that drew the attention of the Obama administration, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled on Monday that the Palestinian Authority would have to post $10 million and an additional $1 million monthly to appeal a huge damages award for its role in six terrorist attacks in Israel that had killed and injured Americans. The bond amount was much lower than lawyers for the victims had sought and matched the amount that lawyers for the Palestinian Authority said in court on Monday that the defendants could pay. The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization in February were found liable in the attacks, which occurred between 2002 and 2004, after a lengthy civil trial brought under an antiterrorism law that provided for a tripling of the jury’s damages award of $218.5 million, for a total of $655.5 million.

August 21, 2015

The New York Times reports the Israeli military launched a second round of airstrikes in Syria on Friday morning, killing all of the passengers traveling in a vehicle and intensifying the most serious conflict in the area in months. The Israeli military said it was pursuing militants who had fired at Israeli-controlled areas on Thursday, saying in a statement that the air force had “targeted part of the terror cell responsible for the rocket fire at northern Israel on Thursday” but providing no further information. Sana, the official Syrian news agency, said an Israeli drone strike hit a civilian vehicle near a marketplace in Al Koum, a village in the Quneitra area on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan Heights.

August 17, 2015

Al Jazeera reports Egyptian authorities have opened the Rafah crossing with the besieged Gaza Strip, allowing Palestinians to travel in both directions for the first time in two months. The border crossing, Gaza's only gateway to the outside world with no Israeli control, opened on Monday for four days. Palestinian border official Khaled al-Shaer said about 20,000 people have applied to use the crossing. Gazans seeking medical care and students are among those expected to cross. Last week, the Gaza-based interior ministry called on Egypt "to assess the difficult humanitarian conditions in Gaza and open the Rafah crossing urgently to save what can be saved". The crossing has been opened for a total of just 15 days this year.

August 05, 2015

The Associated Press reports President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made dueling appeals to the American Jewish community Tuesday as they sought to rally support for their opposing positions on the Iranian nuclear deal. "The nuclear deal with Iran doesn't block Iran's path to the bomb. It actually paves Iran's path to the bomb," Netanyahu said in his remarks. Organizers said about 10,000 people participated in the meeting. Participants in Obama's meeting with Jewish leaders said attendees who oppose the deal raised with the president their concern over being painted as eager for war. They said while Obama appeared sympathetic to their concerns, he continued to argue that if Congress rejects the agreement, he or the next president would quickly face a decision on taking military action to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

July 28, 2015

Reuters reports U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday the upcoming release of Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer convicted of spying for Israel, was not tied to the nuclear agreement with Iran. Israel's leaders have strongly objected to the deal and there has been speculation that Pollard's release, scheduled for November, was arranged to help warm U.S. ties to Israel despite that disagreement. "I haven't even had a conversation about it. No, not at all," Kerry told reporters as he left a House of Representatives committee hearing on the nuclear agreement.

July 21, 2015

The Washington Post reports from this military outpost overlooking southern Lebanon, top U.S. and Israeli officials stood together Monday as they sought to play down divisions over last week’s nuclear deal with Tehran and get on with efforts to counter Iranian influence and other threats along Israel’s borders. The vantage point took in both Lebanon, where Israeli officials say Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters have amassed a huge arsenal of rockets aiming south, and the Golan Heights, beyond which Sunni extremists in Syria threaten one another and, potentially, Israel. Those security concerns loomed large as Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon toured the outpost.

July 09, 2015

The New York Times reports two Israeli civilians are being held by Hamas in Gaza, one of them a man who walked into the Palestinian coastal territory in September, the Israeli authorities said on Thursday. Lifting a 10-month news blackout on the case, the Israeli authorities said that Avraham Mengistu, an Israeli of Ethiopian descent in his 20s, “independently” crossed the Israeli-constructed security fence that runs around the Gaza Strip on Sept. 7. The other man said to be in Gaza, an Arab citizen of Israel, was not identified. The authorities provided few details about his case, other than that he had also crossed into Gaza. The issue of Israelis in captivity is an emotional one in Israel, with the government’s having paid a high price in the past for the return of its citizens or of the remains of soldiers in lopsided prisoner exchange deals that have proved politically contentious, not least because of the large numbers of prisoners that Israel has released.

June 25, 2015

Reuters reports the Palestinian Authority made its first submission of evidence of alleged Israeli war crimes to the International Criminal Court on Thursday, trying to speed up an ICC inquiry into abuses committed during last year's Gaza conflict. The move may leave Israel in a quandary since it must decide whether to cooperate with the ICC investigation or find itself isolated as one of a very few countries that have declined to work with its prosecutors. Israel denies allegations of war crimes by its forces during the 2014 Gaza war and accuses Islamist militants who control the Gaza Strip of atrocities in firing thousands of rockets at Israeli population centers.

June 22, 2015

BBC News reports both Israel and Palestinian militants may have committed war crimes during the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, UN investigators have said. In a long-awaited report, the UN team said there was evidence of "serious violations" by both sides. Israel dismissed the investigation as "politically motivated and morally flawed", while Hamas said it wrongly equated "the victim and executioner". The conflict lasted for 50 days between July and August, and ended in a truce. On the Palestinian side, 2,251 people, of whom 1,462 were civilians, were killed, the report said. On the Israeli side, 67 soldiers were killed along with six civilians, it noted. The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) investigation was mired in controversy from early on. The head of the inquiry, William Schabas, quit part-way through amid Israeli allegations of bias, acknowledging he had previously done work for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Israel had refused to co-operate with the investigation, which it said had drawn its conclusions in advance.

June 17, 2015

Al Jazeera reports the Palestinian unity government formed only a year ago has resigned after President Mahmoud Abbas said it was unable to operate in the Gaza Strip. The resignation came after it emerged that the Gaza Strip's rulers Hamas held separate indirect talks with Israel. An official said that Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah had handed his resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday afternoon, and Abbas had ordered him to form a new government. Various Palestinian factions, including Hamas, are to be consulted before a new government is formed. Abbas earlier on Wednesday announced that the government would resign within 24 hours, as Hamas sources said the group was holding separate, indirect talks with Israel on ways to firm up an informal ceasefire agreement that took hold last August, ending a 50-day war in Gaza.

June 15, 2015

The New York Times reports in a pre-emptive strike against a forthcoming United Nations report on the war last year between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday issued a lengthy paper arguing that its troops adhered to international law and blaming the militants for most of the civilian casualties in Gaza. Israel has refused to cooperate with the United Nations Human Rights Council’s inquiry into the 50-day conflict, denouncing it as biased. With the council expected to publish its findings as soon as Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Anyone who wants to continue with an automatic indictment against Israel, which is baseless, can waste his time reading the U.N. commission report.”

June 12, 2015

The Washington Post reports speaking at a retirement service for his childhood rabbi last weekend, Steven Fulop, mayor of Jersey City, surprised the congregation by devoting much of his remarks to ongoing negotiations over a nuclear deal with Iran. The Democratic mayor laid out five very specific conditions to make any deal with Tehran acceptable. It was “an unusual step for a Jersey mayor,” the local Jersey Journal newspaper reported, and it marked the first time that Fulop had “ventured into the foreign policy arena.” Fulop’s “five key points” appeared to have been taken verbatim from a one-page briefing document — “5 Requirements for a Good Deal” — recently distributed by the Washington-based American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). J Street, the liberal pro-Israel lobby, is leading the charge on the other side. Along with other ­proponents, it has enlisted ­high-profile former government officials and produced a blizzard of printed and online material to argue that the deal is good for America.

June 11, 2015

BBC News reports Israel has denied it bugged talks on Iran's nuclear program, after a security company said a computer virus hacked the venues of the negotiations. The Russian firm Kaspersky Lab said the hacking at three European hotels was so sophisticated, it must have been created by a government. World powers and Iran have been holding talks on the fate of Iran's nuclear program ahead of a 30 June deadline. Switzerland and Austria have both opened investigations into the hacks. The US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China are seeking a final agreement to curtail Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. They fear Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb - something Iran strongly denies.

June 04, 2015

Reuters reports the Israeli military cautiously welcomed on Thursday the expected international deal which would curb Iran's nuclear program, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lobbied for tougher terms to be imposed on Tehran. In remarks carried by several Israeli media outlets, an unnamed senior military officer said that if agreed by its June 30 deadline, the deal would provide clarity on the direction of Iran's nuclear program. Western powers fear that Iran harbors ambitions to build an atomic bomb and years of talks have centered on eradicating the alleged threat. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. The officer said that for now, measures sought by world powers such as stepped-up international inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities and scaling back of its uranium enrichment "allow for the supposition that, in the coming period of years, this is a threat in decline".

May 28, 2015

Reuters reports U.S. defense aid to Israel is likely to increase after 2017, sources on both sides said on Thursday, seeing a possible link to Washington's efforts to assuage its ally's fears over nuclear diplomacy with Iran. A current package worth $3 billion a year expires in 2017. A U.S. official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said negotiators were close to a new deal that would bring annual payouts to $3.6-$3.7 billion on average. An Israeli official, who also declined to be named, put the expected aid at between $3.5 billion and $4 billion. "They (the United States) are trying to douse the fires after our flare-up about the Iran deal," the official added, referring to curbs being negotiated on Tehran's disputed nuclear program which Israel has condemned as insufficient.

May 04, 2015

BBC News reports an Israeli activist group has accused the military of employing a "policy of indiscriminate fire" that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians during last year's Gaza war. Breaking the Silence said the rules of engagement during the 50-day conflict were "the most permissive" it had seen. It published testimonies of soldiers, one of whom said they were ordered to shoot to kill any person they saw. The military said the group had failed to provide any proof of its claims. The fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza left a total of at least 2,189 Palestinians dead, including more than 1,486 civilians, according to the UN. On the Israeli side, 67 soldiers and six civilians were killed.

April 09, 2015

BBC News reports Palestinian factions in Syria's Yarmouk refugee camp have agreed to government action to combat Islamic State (IS) militants, Palestinian officials say. The situation has deteriorated since April 1st, when IS fighters launched an offensive. Before that the camp had been under siege by government forces for months, creating a grave humanitarian crisis. It is unclear whether all Palestinian factions in the camp have agreed to Syrian government intervention. Anti-government Palestinian militiamen and some Free Syrian Army fighters have been leading the fight against IS. "The operation will be conducted in cooperation between the Palestinian groups in Syria and the Syrian government through a joint operation center," Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official Ahmed Majdalani - who is heading a Palestinian delegation in Damascus - told the BBC.

April 06, 2015

The New York Times reports that clearly unsatisfied with assurances from Washington, Israel on Monday listed specific requirements that it said it wanted in any final deal with Iran over that country’s nuclear program. Whereas Israel’s public diplomacy has so far focused on what many have said was an unrealistic demand for the complete dismantlement of Iran’s potentially military nuclear infrastructure, Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of intelligence and strategic affairs, presented a list of desired modifications for the final agreement due to be concluded by June 30, that he said would make it “more reasonable.” Those changes, the Israeli government says, are necessary to close dangerous loopholes in the preliminary framework agreed between Iran and world powers including the United States in Lausanne, Switzerland, last week.

April 03, 2015

The New York Times reports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel introduced a new demand Friday for the final phase of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, saying the completed deal must include an “unambiguous Iranian recognition of Israel’s right to exist.” Netanyahu, the world’s most vocal critic of the emerging agreement between six world powers and Iran, convened a special session of his security cabinet on Friday, hours before the onset of the Passover holiday, to review the framework agreement announced the night before. He emerged saying the group “is united in strongly opposing the proposed deal,” contending it “would pose a grave danger to the region and to the world, and would threaten the very survival of the state of Israel.”

April 01, 2015

The Associated Press reports the Palestinians formally joined the International Criminal Court on Wednesday, as part of a broader effort to put international pressure on Israel and exact a higher price for its occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state. Beyond seeking war crimes charges against Israel at the court, the Palestinians want the U.N. Security Council to set a deadline for an Israeli troop withdrawal and hope for new momentum of a Palestinian-led international movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions. The atmosphere seems ripe for international intervention after recently re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu startled the world with a pledge to voters, since withdrawn, that he would not allow a Palestinian state to be established.

March 25, 2015

The New York Times reports over an elegant dinner at his official residence Monday night, Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, tried to reassure a group of congressional Democrats that the dramatic public break between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was nothing more than a passing disagreement. Every American president since Harry S. Truman has had differences with Israel, Dermer told the group, and they always work themselves out. The gathering was part of a bid by Dermer, the American-born former Republican operative who is so close to Netanyahu that he is often referred to as “Bibi’s brain,” to smooth tensions that have flared up in recent weeks between the United States and Israel. But an apology tour it is not. If anything, Dermer is intensifying his efforts to thwart the nuclear deal with Iran that Obama is working hard to close within days.

March 24, 2015

BBC News reports Israel has strongly denied a report that it spied on US-led talks on Iran's nuclear program in order to build a case against a deal. A senior Israeli official told the BBC that the claims, reported in the Wall Street Journal, were "utterly false". The Journal said the White House had been particularly angered that Israel allegedly sought to share confidential details with US lawmakers and others. Many Republicans in Congress are opposed to a deal with Iran. Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the U.S. Congress that a deal being discussed could "pave Iran's path to the bomb". The U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Russia and China are seeking an agreement to curtail Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. They fear Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb - something Iran denies. Israel is not a party to the negotiations although it feels particularly threatened by the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran.

March 23, 2015

NPR reports Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apologized to his country's Arab citizens for his comments ahead of last week's elections, saying he did not intend to offend them when he said Israel's Arabs were voting "in droves" to unseat his government. "I know the things I said a few days ago hurt some of Israel's citizens and hurt Israel's Arabs. I had no intention to do that. I apologize for it," he said at a meeting with representatives of Israel's minority communities. Last week, when polls suggested his party might lose the national election, Netanyahu wrote a Facebook post urging his supporters to come out and vote. It said, in part: "The right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls. Left-wing organizations are busing them out."

March 19, 2015

The New York Times reports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Thursday walked back his pre-election declaration that no Palestinian state would be established on his watch, and said he had not been trying to suppress the votes of Arab citizens when he posted a video on Election Day. Netanyahu said in an interview on MSNBC that he still wanted “a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that he had not intended to reverse the position he took endorsing that in a 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University. But he said the Palestinian leadership’s refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and its pact with the militant Islamist Hamas movement, made that impossible right now. “I haven’t changed my policy,” Mr. Netanyahu said in the interview, his first since his resounding victory on Tuesday, which handed him a fourth term. “What has changed is the reality.”

March 18, 2015

The New York Times reports Benjamin Netanyahu’s resounding victory in Israeli elections on Tuesday appears to have dashed any hopes President Obama might have had for a way out of his tumultuous and often bitter relationship with the prime minister. White House officials offered no immediate reaction late Tuesday night to results that showed Netanyahu with a substantial lead after a divisive campaign that featured a national debate about whether the Israeli leader was undermining the country’s longstanding connection with the United States. In a statement earlier in the day, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said only that Obama was “committed to working very closely with the winner of the ongoing elections to cement and further deepen the strong relationship between the United States and Israel.”

March 06, 2015

Reuters reports United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern on Friday at a decision by Palestinian leaders in the West Bank to halt security coordination with Israel and called for the international community to push for a Middle East peace deal. The Palestinian Central Council, whose votes are usually binding on the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, said on Thursday it made the decision because Israel had breached bilateral agreements, including withholding tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians. An end to the agreement on security coordination, which dates from the Oslo peace accords of the mid-1990s, could have an immediate impact on stability in West Bank cities such as Hebron, Nablus and Jenin, where anti-Israel unrest is common.